Letters to the Editor

Fiscal sellout

When members of the mayor’s Fiscal Review Panel feel it necessary to explain that “monetizing” is not selling city assets, then that is exactly what it is.

The mayor’s refusal to expose this charade indicates that he has capitulated to council’s right-wing members and their corporate agenda.

The Fiscal Review Panel’s report is laden with cost-cutting and revenue-increasing measures that, if implemented, will be at the expense of the city’s workers and residents.

It’s a sad day for the city of Toronto.

Ted Turner

Toronto

Queen fire tourist trap

Enzo Dimatteo’s suggestion that the aftermath of the Queen and Bathurst fire “is a little like what it must feel like at Ground Zero in New York,” (NOW, February 28-March 5) was one of the most idiotic things I have read in a long time.

I have visited both Ground Zero and Queen Street two days after the fire. One was a mass grave. Queen Street seemed more like an ad hoc tourist attraction, with the entire neighbourhood out snapping photos on cameras or cellphones. No one died.

The suggestion that the two sites are similar is a bonehead piece of florid prose lamely attempting to provoke an emotional response that a good journalist/writer would allow the events and images to convey for themselves.

My first complaint about your otherwise consistently enjoyable paper.

Keith Urquhart

Toronto

Zero comparisons, stupid

Perhaps it’s asking too much for a free weekly to avoid intellectual laziness, but to compare the aftermath of the recent Queen West fire to that of Ground Zero in New York, where thousands died as a direct result of murderous acts that continue to send depressingly polarizing geopolitical reverberations, is just plain stupid.

It is precisely this sort of self-obsessed, myopic drivel coming from its media and institutions that cements Toronto’s position as a subpar city on the international stage. Bravo, Now, for embarrasing all of us who call ourselves residents of this city.

Jon Norman

Toronto

Boles missing pulse

Benjamin Boles writes that “Greenspan’s set was a perfect lead-in to Geist’s” at the 7th Heaven party (NOW, February 28-March 5).

The real heads know that it was our very own Gary Abugan who set the stage for both DJs on that glorious evening. Abugan is the city’s most ardent champion of the avant-disco sound and has been holding it down for more than half a decade – well before nu rave, electro and all that other indie-dance bullshit took over the clubs. Check your “pulse,” Boles, and get hip to what’s really hot – and local, too.

Prasad Bidaye

Toronto

The moat for these posers

Can someone please remind me one more time why I’m interviewing this smug asshole about his shitty band?

This line could have summed up your interview with Crystal Castles (NOW, February 21-27) nicely, rather than the one and three-quarters pages of contempt we readers were presented with. Benjamin Boles’s aversion wasn’t exactly subtlely veiled.

Not to say that I don’t agree with this notion. In fact, I often find myself wondering what exactly Crystal Castles have given us that hasn’t been done much better a thousand times before. Boring and rehashed, I say.

Also, for two people who claim to hate being photographed, those kids sure do pose nicely.

Candice Cassno

Toronto

Pigeon planet

So Daryll T. Craig has it in for pigeons (NOW, February 28-March 5). “Filthy little bastards,” he calls them We humans, through short-sighted ignorance, arrogance and greed, continue to destroy ourselves and all creatures and other life forms upon this beautiful and ill-appreciated planet.

Guess what, Mr. Craig? We don’t own this planet, we share it. The vindictive and raging tone of your letter makes me shudder at the thought of your potential for animal cruelty.

I have stopped traffic to pick up a wounded pigeon in the middle of the road. And I don’t have bedbugs.

Jennifer Moore

Toronto

Gallery appreciation

The opening exhibit at the cryptic Canvas was/is a wonderful success! Wow, thank you to everyone who braved the storm (and actually found the gallery). I can’t tell you how much your support and generosity is appreciated.

For those of you who couldn’t make it, I understand. I waited two hours for a cab.

Rick O’Brien

Toronto

Cash for right-wing causes

It’s not surprising that you’re unhappy about the decision by the Liberal party to allow the Conservative budget to pass, with its $10 billion payment toward the national debt (NOW, February 28-March 5) . The left is tax-and-spend.

When is the right time for a government to pay off its debts?

Presumably, only after all other national problems are solved and everybody’s needs are fully met.

And that day will (sadly) never come.

Ultimately, it’s more practical to pay off debts when we can.

Our great neighbour to the south is a horrible example of what can happen when this free-spending philosophy gets out of control – although, ironically, the mess there has been caused by conservative Republicans.

David Palter

Toronto

Liberals’ Con game

Now that the Liberal party has entered into a de facto coalition with the Conservatives (the Lib-Con Coalition, as I like to call it), it is high time for my fellow lefties to stop calling for the NDP to join with the Liberals and Greens in a “progressive” coalition.

A vote for the Liberal party is a vote to prop up the Conservative government.

The LPC is targeting several NDP-held ridings, with an eye to replacing the capable and progressive representation in place with the Liberals’ own brand of invertebrate collaborationism.

But all is not lost. Fortunately for Canadians, progressives have a satisfying option: they can vote for a genuinely, unabashedly and (unconflicted) progressive political party, the NDP.

This is a forward-looking opportunity that, sadly, Canadians continually take for granted.